Santo Domingo East mayor Juan de los Santos says that the government still has time to increase the funding for the extension of Line 2 of the Santo Domingo Metro. “We are in time. As long as it (the budget for 2014) is in Congress there is a chance that they will find a solution,” said De los Santos. The mayor, one of the principal promoters of the Santo Domingo Metro, told Diario Libre that President Danilo Medina “has not discarded the idea of the Metro and he wants to finish the project, but the government is facing a difficult economic situation that we understand. But I think that just getting it into the municipality is a step forward.”
De los Santos revealed that given the cutback, he suggested to President Medina that the Metro be extended to the Megacentro. “To build the bridge and construct it (the rail line) as far as the Megacentro would be a great contribution to the municipality that is certainly needed. And this is the plan I proposed to the President. Because the Metro needs to grow towards Santo Domingo East, but the municipality, which has grown the most over the past 15 years also deserves the Metro,” he said.
De los Santos pointed out that at present, the inhabitants of Santo Domingo East have to suffer a lot due to the high cost of public transportation fares, the condition of the vehicles and the time they have to invest each day. “The Metro would provide dignity to hundreds of thousands of people who live here, because I do not know if you know this but the people who have to work on the other side of the river have to leave home at 6:30 in the morning because if they leave any later it takes them over two hours to get to their workplaces,” he said.